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Scientists Discover Biggest Star
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered the most massive stellar giant, R136a1 measured at 265 solar masses, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile and data from the Hubble Space Telescope. It's in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small 'satellite' galaxy which orbits the Milky Way. Previously, the heaviest known stars were around 150 times the mass of the Sun, known as the 'Eddington Limit,' and this was believed to be close to the cosmic size limit because as stars get larger, the amount of energy created in their cores grows faster than the force of gravity which holds them together. 'Because of their proximity to the Eddington Limit they lose mass at a pretty high rate,' says Professor Paul Crowther, the chief researcher in the Sheffield team. Hyper-stars like R136a1 are believed to be formed from several young stars merging together, and are only found in the very heart of stellar clusters. R136a1 is believed to have a surface temperature of more than 40,000 degrees Celsius, and is 10 million times brighter than the Sun. Crowther adds that R136a1 is about as big as stars can get. 'Owing to the rarity of these monsters, I think it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon.'"
Mr Reiser exhaled deeply. Cigarette smoke drifted slowly towards the back of the car, dancing on the stuffy air slowly circulating the 1983 Cadillac Coupe Deville. Hans cracked the window a little; things were getting too musty even for his tastes. It had been a long day, and he feared it would be an even longer night. He reached towards the old stereo and twisted the tuning knob. Static. "I guess that's all you're gonna get in the deserts of Nevada", he thought. Onwards into the night.
Some time later, Reiser was startled by the headlights and horn of an approaching vehicle. He jumped wide awake. "Damn, must have started to drift off..." he mused, not slowing down for one second. Perhaps the sweet release of death would have been welcome. Perhaps not. Best to purge such thoughts. Another oncoming car passed. "Must be getting close to Vegas now...", Hans muttered. Time for another cigarette. Inhaling the sweet smoke for all it was worth, Mr Reiser reached over to the passanger seat. Sitting there was his trusty Thermos flask. Bringing the flask towards his lips, he gulped down the hours old coffee. It was still quite warm. Sweet nectar. "At least this should keep me awake for a while". Hans washed the coffee down with some more smoke. They might have been cheap cigarettes, but damn they were good. Hans knew he shouldn't smoke. "Why worry about something that could kill you in 15 years when there's so much that could kill a man now?", he always concluded.
Rumble. "Did I hear something..?" Rumble. Hans started to wonder if there was something wrong with his trusty Cadillac. Rumble rumble. Suddenly it hit him. That wasn't his car, it was his stomach, his bowels, his very innards. "Can't be long to Vegas now Hans, hold on in there old boy, you can make it." He had planned to have a weekend of whores and slots, having taken care of some long overdue business that very weekend. Maybe then he'd leave the country. Who knows. Rumble. The coffee and cigarettes were taking their toll with increasing aggression. Hans' ageing body couldn't take the laxative effect as it once could. "I'm getting too old for this shit", he mumbled, and wondered once more what it'd be like to just flick the wheel and end it all. "I'd probably get even that wrong and end up as a vegetable", he thought with a sadistic grin creeping across his face.
The urge had gotten too strong, Hans knew he had to stop the car. Hesitant to pull over in the pitch black, he slowed down and wondered if there was anywhere off the beaten track that might be safe. Rumble. Things were getting desperate. Reiser reasoned that things would probably be ok, after all no cars had passed in quite a while. And god knows he had to shit. It was decided, the choice was taken from him. Slowing down some more, Hans pulled off the old road and into the desert. A couple of hundred meters down the road, Reiser slammed on the brakes, almost jumped out of the car and pulled his jeans down. They hadn't been washed in a month or more, but who cared about that? He only masturbated once per day, and his weekly shower ensured his nob didn't poison his jeans with stale semen too much. Besides, whores were paid to fuck and keep their mouth shut.
Hans was squatting now, his stomach rumbling like an earthquake and anus hanging inches from the floor. "Let's get it on", he said aloud. Reiser barely had to push. With a god like blast, liquid diarrhea gushed from within him. Pints of glorious brown liquid spraying in all directions onto the hard rocky floor. Hans inhaled deeply. Could it be that this was better than inhaling a cigarette? Quite possibly. The stream finally started to slow, chunks spluttering from his filthy shit caked ring. "Liquid shit truely is the only way to shit", Mr Reiser thought. The almost paedophilliac smile crept back across his face. This was the life.
Finally, Hans was ready to get back on the road. He had some old tissue to clean up the mess, but he was unsure if it'd deal with the s
"In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are not."
I hate this quote.
In theory and in practice, theory and practice are separate and different.
"Crowther adds that R136a1 is about as big as stars can get."
This week, last week we thought they could only get to about 60% of this size.
You'd think the scientist would be a bit more cautious before making a leap like this after a previous widely accepted theory was crushed. Of course tomorrow someone will be assuring us all that scientific theories are really more like facts than current, subject to change, understanding.
Of course theories are not mere guesses but they are often given as much too much weight in the scientific world as they are given too little in the civilian.
Additionally, there is the bogus idea that a revised theory should still be considered a theory. Instead a revised theory is now no more than a hypothesis, requiring fresh predictions (to be tested against new observation not previous data) and verification and requiring the fresh application of Occam's Razor (since a revised theory is also usually going to have additional complexity to patch up the previous theory).